Definition of Hand History

A hand history is a record of the individual playing actions that took place during a card game. Poker is the card game most associated with hand histories, and hand histories are generally just an aspect of online play.

All poker sites generate and store these histories because they're necessary to resolve player disputes. Most sites make the histories available to the player, and some allow the player to go back as far as his or her entire career.

Typically, an online poker room filters a hand history prior to exposing it to the player. The reason for this is that the original hand history reveals otherwise unknown hole cards and other info, which could lead to an unfair advantage.

Hand histories are a great learning resource because players can use them to identify and correct their mistakes. A player can also learn by studying the history of another player's successful play during a particular poker hand.

In fact, entire online databases of hand histories have a sprung up around this concept. A player can search for a particular scenario in the database, and then examine the hand history to see how the winning player handled it.

There are also commercial products available that use these hand histories to track a player's winnings and losses. Some products also use the hand histories to build a behavior profile as well as track the behavior of opponents.